Clean Air And Dirty Movies

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 6, 2000 / 10:44 AM
/ CBS

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will study a key environmental case. The court also struck down an adult cable TV law, blocked air bag lawsuits and sided with airline passengers who lost luggage.

The high court stepped into an enormous environmental battle by agreeing to decide the fate of tougher federal regulations for curtailing smog and soot nationwide.

The justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing clean-air standards it adopted in 1997, among the most contentious regulations ever issued by the Clinton administration.

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The dispute carries "profound implications for the health of the American public," government lawyers told the court.

Legal Analysis

CBSNews.com Legal Consultant Andrew Cohen says the Supreme Court more than earned its keep with a flurry of activity on Monday. Click here for his analysis of the court's actions.

The EPA says the tougher standards are needed to protect people with respiratory ailments, the elderly and children from the adverse health effects of dirty air.

The standards were successfully challenged by a large coalition of industry groups and three states -- Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of the Appeals ruled by a 2-1 vote last year that the agency overstepped its authority. The appeals court panel said the EPA had interpreted the 1990 Clean Air Act "so loosely" that it unlawfully usurped Congress' legislative power.

The full appeals court voted 6-5 in October against reviewing the panel's decision.

The revised air standards limited the allowable level of ozone, an essential part of smog, to 0.08 parts per million, instead of the 0.12 parts per million under the old requirement. And states for the first time were required to regulate microscopic particulates, or soot, from power plants, cars and other sources down to 2.5 microns, or 28 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to issue air quality standards to protect human health. The law says the agency may set pollution limits that "accurately reflect the latest scientific knowledge useful in indicating the kind anextent of all identifiable effects on public health or welfare which may be expected from the presence of a pollutant."

In another decision, the court rejected government claims that cable smut is reaching young children, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Bagnato.

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The U.S. Supreme court has struck down a law limiting non-scrambled, sex-oriented cable TV programming to late night hours only. Do you agree the law was a violation of free speech, or are such laws needed to protect our kids? Click here to join the discussion.

The court has thrown out a law that required cable operators to either scramble sex channels, or restrict them to overnight broadcasts. Justice Anthony Kennedy says basic free speech priniciples were at stake in this case. He says the government failed to show there was a serious, nationwide problem that justified such a ban.

The high court, by a 5-4 vote, agreed with Playboy's arguments that the 1996 federal law was too broad and violated constitutional First Amendment free-speech rights.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the court majority that the government failed to prove the law was the least restrictive means of addressing a real problem.

``Basic speech principles are at stake in this case,'' Kennedy wrote in the 22-page ruling. ``Here, the government has not met the burden the First Amendment imposes.''

The Supreme Court also let stand a ruling that could force airlines to pay a lot more to some passengers whose luggage was lost or damaged.

The court, without comment, rejected an appeal in which American Airlines sought to limit how much it may have to pay for five suitcases that disappeared, or arrived empty, during a family's 1995 trip from the District of Columbia to the Dominican Republic.

The nation's major air carriers told the justices that a federal appeals court ruling in the American Airlines case ``will senselessly harm the airlines and raise the cost of air travel for their passengers.''

Another Supreme Court decision affects the millions of Americans who drive or ride in cars built before federal regulations required air bags. They cannot, when injured in accidents, sue auto makers for not installing the safety devices, the court ruled Monday.
The justices, by a 5-4 vote, said federal regulation of automobile safety pre-empts, or blocks, lawsuits in which people invoke state product-liability laws and contend air bags could have saved them from harm.

The decision killed the lawsuit of a District of Columbia woman who suffered serious head injuries when she crashed her 1987 Honda.